


Delayed Gratification

by Jairissa



Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:25:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jairissa/pseuds/Jairissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Winsol gift gains most of its meaning from its giver. Even one long awaited and rather mysterious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delayed Gratification

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tolakasa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolakasa/gifts).



Intuition, Saetan had discovered, was a tricky thing. Ignoring one or two gross misjudgements of character - an avoidance best not repeated too often - he had always had a very well-honed instinct. In particular he found that he possessed in spades the miraculous sensitivity to mischief that parents seemed to develop almost overnight when it came to the troubles their children gleefully created.

In this case there had, perhaps, been more signs than usual. The mysterious disappearance of several of the groundsman's tools had been his first clue. The second had come in the uncharacteristically dishevelled appearances of some of his most well-loved volumes of Craft. His final, and most decisive, signal had been the realisation that two overly loud young males had vanished from under the now-frantic housekeeper's nose.

His lack of attention was only partly his own fault, Saetan reasoned. The information had not come to him in any sort of reasonable way. He had heard several iterations of _"I can't do this anymore"_ and at least one _"If I find out which of you has been feeding the little monsters coffee, I will personally invent an entirely new orifice to pull your organs out of, and then use them as Winsol decorations,"_ which was so delightfully creative Saetan was almost willing to forgive the slight to his sons.

It took little effort to scan the Hall for the traces of unusually strong signatures that could only belong to his sons. There was a special kind of darkness there, particularly in Daemon's. Saetan was proudly terrified of their Birthright ceremony, and the inevitable presentation of two sets of Birthright Red Jewels. He regretted capitulating to Tersa's request to make it a Winsol treat; he would have gladly welcomed more time treasuring his children's babyhood.

The ease of that darkness in tracking them was a bonus he would not be mentioning until they were old enough to resist the urge to find ways to muffle it.

"No, no, that goes there," Lucivar hissed through the door Saetan was standing outside. There was a big enough keyhole that he would be perfectly capable of seeing the entire adventure, if he choose to forget dignity enough to crouch down in the hallway like a gossiping maid.

"If we put that there we won't be able to do the _spell_ ," Daemon insisted. Raising an eyebrow, Saetan contemplated bursting through the doorway to demand an immediate explanation. He glanced down the empty corridor and was almost assaulted by the elegant Winsol decorations, the cheerfulness of which gave him pause and melted his reserve just enough to give his errant offspring a chance to redeem themselves.

It was a small sigh, not audible enough to disrupt his boys, that signalled his capitulation. Sinking on to one knee, Saetan pressed his eye to the keyhole and squinted until the scene behind it came into view.

Daemon and Lucivar were hunched over a hastily nailed together contraption that was made of some combination of wood, metal and what appeared to be desperate hope. Saetan could sense no power coming from it, no spell added, but the array of ingredients spilling over the pristine carpet of one of the guest bedrooms indicated that the oversight would be rectified quickly enough. 

While Daemon carefully scooped up a pudgy handful of harmless herbs, Lucivar picked up the purloined hammer and, his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, smacked one of the uneven nails enthusiastically. The hammer was bigger than the young boy's arm, and Saetan's heart was in his mouth as Lucivar wielded it, positive a tiny finger was about to be thoughtlessly crushed.

Lucivar, apparently satisfied with the work he had done, dropped the hammer carelessly to the ground. His bright smile of victory was matched by a soft one of Saetan's own. Even Daemon, lost as he was in the words he was slowly sounding out of the thick volume of Craft, patted his brother's leg encouragingly, a wide grin on the tiny reflection of Saetan's own face. 

"D'you think Papa'll like it?" Lucivar asked, his brow furrowed in thought. The small, dark wings, outstretched and lovely, fluttered a little. Daemon shook his head scornfully, in his breath blowing out in a huff.

"It's a s'prise," he lectured Lucivar. Saetan suspected this speech had been given more than once. " _We_ like s'prises for Winsol."

"Papa's a growned up," Lucivar reasoned, his face taking on the stubborn set that Saetan had come to recognize would precede either a tantrum or a fight. "They like boring stuff."

"Pfft," Daemon said, in such a perfect imitation of Saetan's well-practiced sound of disagreement that Saetan had to stuff his fist into his mouth to ensure that he didn't laugh out loud. "'Member when we draw him pictures? He likes that."

"Yeah," Lucivar agreed, tilting his head to try and match Daemon's expression.

"And this is better than pictures, right?" Daemon finished, nodding his head sagely.

"Yeah," Lucivar said again, mollified. "Way better."

"So he'll love it," Daemon finished. Lucivar nodded cheerfully and held out his hands for the herbs that Daemon offered him. Most of them ended up on the floor. Saetan resigned himself to coming back to the out of the way room before the maids found it, and cleaning it. Undignified janitorial work was far simpler than allowing the mess to be discovered by frantic staff and thus necessitate heartfelt penance from the man who, he had discovered, was solely responsible for all the misbehaviours of those two particular delinquents. "Now I'll hold on here, while you hammer that."

_Here_ was a piece of metal barely an inch in diameter while _that_ was a nail of such sharpness that Saetan shuddered to think what could happen when it and the small hands possessed by his youngest children met.

Rather than discovering this in a painful, and much louder, fashion Saetan used a small bit of Craft to project his voice to the end of the hallway and call out loudly.

"Daemon? Lucivar? Are we playing our hiding game again?"

Inside the door there were two quickly indrawn breaths. Saetan watched in fascination as the haphazard project was shoved hastily under the bed and two small boys did their best to erase all traces of it off both themselves and the carpet. They did better than he had anticipated; by the time Saetan walked quietly to the area his voice had come from, the room was presentable enough that, had he not already known what to look for, Saetan suspected he would have breezed past it without noticing at all.

He turned the other way when his sons burst out of the room, and pretended to notice them only when the door had been slammed closed behind them. Then he turned, greeting them with his brightest smile and open arms, arms soon filled with two exuberant youngsters who clutched tightly to his neck.

"Now where have you two been?" Saetan asked, pretending at sternness. "Not making trouble, I hope?"

"No, Papa," they chorused in unison, exchanging what they deemed a shifty glance.

"We were good!" Lucivar insisted, his wings beating a soft rhythm against Saetan's arm. He looked askance at his brother, who shook his head decisively. "Papa?"

"Yes, Lucivar?" Saetan asked gravely, pressing a soft kiss to Daemon's head. 

"You like s'prises, right?"

"I like nothing more," Saetan advised him surely, repeating the motion on his youngest boy. Lucivar beamed happily, and Saetan resisted the urge to sneak back into the room to discover what it was they had been doing, and to haul them away from all the lessons he knew they would find so dull. "Now, if I recall correctly, we have some Protocol to learn before next week."

"But Papa!" They protested. Saetan raised an eyebrow and they subsided, pouting unhappily.

"But after that is Winsol?" Daemon clarified.

"After that is the first day of Winsol, yes," Saetan said, filling with warmth as he thought of all the gifts he had so carefully hidden, and the happiness he would see on his son's faces when they saw what he had chosen for them.

"Not fair to make us learn Protocol at Winsol," Daemon said, but he let his father carry him to the small study that had been designated their classroom. He distracted them as best he could with their lessons, his fingers tapping on the wood of his own desk as he contemplated his forthcoming gift with a soft smile on his face.

* * *

It stung, hearing his son described as a hideous pest. Lucivar bit his tongue each time, fighting against the rising frustration that made him want to reach across the room, grab the perpetrator by the throat and shake them until they understood that he didn't care what they said in private, but they were not to say that in front of Daemonar.

He had slipped, more than once. He had dreaded seeing the afflicted servant again, but each time he had searched for them, inquired after their health, he had faced the brick wall that Beale was adept at putting up. It had taken Lucivar longer than it should have, almost embarrassingly so, to realise that after their altercations said servants were no longer in the employ of SaDiablo Hall.

"They weren't a good fit for the family," his father had said sternly the one time Lucivar had made up his mind to discuss it. There was little point going up against Saetan when his hackles were up, so Lucivar shrugged, figured they'd quit and left it at that. He found it hard to have sympathy for those who so clearly saw his son as a burden, as opposed to the joy he was.

The tiring, mischievous, overly energetic joy.

"Daemonar?" Lucivar yelled again, thumping his fist against the wall when he heard no answer. He'd been all over this damned hall three times, and still his son had managed to keep hidden. He'd call it miraculous if he weren't so damned frustrated. The one thing he'd always been able to count on was Daemonar's lack of subtlety; there was no way the child should have been able to keep quiet so long.

He turned, his boots making loud clunking noises, even on the softly carpeted floors, almost drowning out the tiny giggle that emerged when he took the first step away from the guest wing he had been investigating. It was small, out of the way, meticulously cleaned and bizarrely unused. 

Recalling how many guests they were expecting this year, Lucivar was stunned it hadn't been pressed into use. He was pointing that out to the next damned maid who bitched to him that they were running out of room, and where did they expect to put all the multitude of people they were inviting anyway?

Lucivar crept forward with great care, his once heavy steps barely making a sound. He poked his head through a slightly open door and listened intently. There it was: soft breathing, and the occasionally stifled laugh. He gave no opportunity for escape, darting forward and rolling under the bed, catching Daemonar in a tight grip as he moved

"There you are, boyo," Lucivar crowed, laughing with no small measure of relief. "Now what are we doing here?"

"Hiding!" Daemonar yelled, smacking Lucivar excitedly on the side of the face. It ached more than a small pair of Eyrien fists should. He turned his head to see his son holding some sort of strange contraption he must have unearthed in his explorations.

"What's this?" Lucivar asked, scooting them both out from under the bed. Sitting up in the increased light Lucivar could see that, whatever it was, it was barely holding together. There were traces of wood long since rotted away, and a remaining twist of ugly metal that Lucivar couldn't decipher at all.

"Dunno," Daemonar said, pondering it intensely. Then he looked at his father with a large grin and clocked Lucivar over the head with it again. "Sword!"

"Definitely not a sword," Lucivar laughed, judiciously untangling his son's fat fingers from whatever it was. There were half-hammered nails everywhere, and more than a few sharp edges that could cut soft skin far too easily. "If I let you slice yourself open on this, your mother will kill me."

Daemonar contemplated that silently, making a face when he came to a decision. He opened his mouth to yell again. In an effort to distract him, Lucivar vanished the mystery object and hurriedly took them both in the direction of the kitchen. He wasn't sure what Mrs Beale was cooking, but it smelled delicious enough to distract even the most determined toddler. 

Hopefully Daemonar's impending tantrum would be enough to convince her that she needed to give up a tiny bit of the treat a little early.

~*~

"Why didn't you tell me having kids was such a pain in the ass?" Lucivar asked rhetorically, throwing himself into the chair in front of his father's desk. Saetan slid his glasses down his nose and templed his fingers under his chin. He wasn't smiling, though there was enough amusement written in his eyes to rankle the edges of Lucivar's already frayed temper.

"Because you would have changed your mind," Saetan said dryly. "Then your wife would have flattened you, and I wouldn't get to see you suffer too."

"So you didn't want me to get flattened," Lucivar said, untangling his father's double speak as best he could. "But suffering's fine."

"Yes," Saetan confirmed, the laughter in his eyes touching at the edges of his lips.

Lucivar groaned, rubbing at his own temples. The headache didn't recede at all, and he closed his eyes in frustration, blocking out the light. His father's chair rustled, and then Lucivar felt warm fingers rubbing at his shoulders, easing the tension out of them with a lightly seductive touch. He didn't speak again until those clever hands had made their way across his neck and down the parts of his back that were accessible over the chair.

"Better?" Saetan asked, his lips brushing over Lucivar's hair. Lucivar's hand jerked, and he pulled out the thing Daemonar had been playing with. He looked at it carefully, turning it over in his hands, trying to work out what felt so strangely wrong with it.

"Yeah," he said distractedly, handing the object over for Saetan to see. "Any idea what this is? I had to confiscate it from Daemonar, and he wasn't happy about it."

Lucivar looked up, amused. His father's face was blank for a second, then he blanched, his brown skin paling terribly. He turned away so abruptly that Lucivar had to jerk backwards, nearly falling out of his chair, to get out of his way.

"It's nothing," Saetan said in emotionless voice. Lucivar hauled himself upright, spinning and turning around his father. It took all his extensive training to outmanoeuvre the older man, an inevitably pointless enterprise. By the time they were face to face Saetan had pulled himself together, plastering his face with its perfectly practiced court mask. "Some piece of junk someone lost somewhere."

"I'll chuck it in the bin on the way out, then," Lucivar said, reaching out for the now far more interesting object.

"No," Saetan said, his fingers clutching so tightly to it that Lucivar thought they might break. "I'll dispose of it later. I wouldn't want any more small fingers getting close to the nails."

Lucivar took careful note of Saetan's use of _any more_. Not for the first time he wished Daemon was here; Daemon would know what words to say to smooth the situation over, to pry the information out of an unwilling protestor. Despite his best efforts his brother was still lost to them, still wandering the Twisted Kingdom, alone, defenceless and unable to answer so many pressing questions.

"Works for me," Lucivar shrugged, not wanting to press further and see that expression cross Saetan's face again. "I'd better tuck the monster into bed anyway."

"Good luck," Saetan said. He smiled, but it had none of the mirth of their earlier camaraderie. 

"Thanks," Lucivar said, adding another mystery to the many that surrounded the Hall and its inhabitants. He wondered if he'd ever find the answer to half of them, dreaded what they would contain if he did. "Good night, Father."

"Good night, Lucivar," Saetan said, a terrible sadness on his handsome features as the door closed between them.

* * *

"How do you find the energy to do this?" Daemon groaned, cupping his hands around the steaming mug of coffee tightly, a little afraid that one of the overworked staff dashing around them would steal and guzzle all of it before the precious liquid reached his bloodstream. Lucivar, the damned prick, stood at the window, showing none of Daemon's exhaustion.

"Practice," Lucivar said, his voice as distant as the mountains he was looking towards. Daemon frowned, tucking the coffee mug on an empty shelf and pulling himself to his feet. He'd thought that he'd be able to capture more of Lucivar's attention now that Daemonar had been wrestled into bed, but even Daemon's stalking across the room, brushing his chest against his brother's back, failed to rouse him.

"What am I missing?" Daemon asked, an edge in his low voice. Lucivar tensed, turning slowly, gently, until Daemon could see the distraction held no hint of danger in it.

"You'll have to move back if you want to see it, old son," Lucivar said, and Daemon took two short steps back, his eyebrow raised. Lucivar sighed, a huff of breath that steamed up in the cold air coming through the open window. "It's not what you think, Daemon."

"What do I think?" Daemon asked, straightening the cuffs of his crisp white shirt, the familiarity of the lines and the soft, perfumed scent calming him enough to meet his brother's eyes without challenge.

Lucivar hesitated in his answer, twisting his empty hand until an object appeared in it. It was strange, twisted and rusted with old age, but it tugged at something inside Daemon. The more he stared at it the further the memory fled from him, and he growled in frustration. He reached out, wanting to snatch it from Lucivar's fingers and shake it until it made sense.

Instead he brushed his fingertips over it, tracing the roughened metal with tingling skin, occasionally touching his hand to Lucivar's. It was that as much as anything else, the sight of his brother's brown fingers cradling it carefully, that called what little of the memory there was left to his mind. He smiled, a childish giggle escaping him. He slapped his hand over his mouth to muffle it instinctively, and met Lucivar's startled gaze with a sad smile.

"It was a present for Father," Daemon sighed, turning away from the window and winding his way back to his chair. The coffee had cooled enough to drink and Daemon took a long, slow gulp, savouring the slight bitterness on his tongue. "A surprise, I think."

"What the hell were we thinking?" Lucivar asked frankly. The answer lay on the tip of Daemon's tongue, so close that he squeezed out a few pointless syllables, expecting to hear it. "Daemon…"

"I don't know," Daemon said doubtfully, glaring at it in annoyance. "There was Craft to it. Some spell I'd read somewhere, and that needed you to build whatever that is to enclose it in. I remember…"

He didn't finish the sentence. There were so many large gaps in his memories of that time, scraps of love, affection and contentment that he knew he would never get back. It bothered Lucivar equally, Daemon could see it in the stiff lines of his brother's back, the way his fidgeting shifted into graceful stalking, pacing the room in long strides that solved nothing.

"That's all I remember," Daemon finished softly.

"It won't come back, will it?" Lucivar said irritably. 

"No," Daemon said, such a simple word for a problem that stumped them. He used Craft to float the object out of his brother's hand until it was hovering in between them, twisting in a slow circle that revealed all the flaws and none of the point. He blinked once, twice, a determination winding through his chest. "We were children when we made this."

"So?" Lucivar asks, as succinctly and abruptly as only Daemon's brother could.

"How hard can it be to decipher the idea of a couple of children?" Daemon asked, as much to himself as to Lucivar. "There's almost a month to Winsol. Enough time for me to study my Craft and you to find the tools."

Lucivar clearly thought Daemon was out of his mind, but as long as Daemon was intending to go ahead with it he knew there was a part of his brother that would be unable to resist the opportunity to put together a few more happy memories of his childhood. The answer was so close. Daemon knew, with utmost certainty, that he would crack the puzzle long before it was needed.

"Where did you even find this old thing?" Daemon muttered, racking his brain for any spell that would make sense.

"Unused wing," Lucivar said shortly. "Father confiscated it when I asked him about it."

"How did you get it back, then?" Daemon asked, puzzled, pausing in his planning. Lucivar's lips curled dangerously.

"Told Daemonar he wasn't meant to have it, then turned my back for a minute," he said. Daemon winced and deliberately didn't think about Saetan's inevitable reaction.

~*~

The gift was impeccably wrapped. The disaster that had met so many of their other presents had, thankfully, been avoided in this small offering, hidden as it was so far away from the rest of the season's presents. Daemon had spent most of the evening intending to throw it in with the rest of the rubbish the moment all greedy eyes turned away, until Lucivar met his eyes in clear challenge.

Never let it be said that Daemon backed away from a fight.

Saetan had taken refuge in his study at precisely the moment the sugar he had been feeding Daemonar half the morning had reached critical mass and exploded in a sticky, vibrating, shrieking Eyrien toddler. The exhaustion on Lucivar's face as Daemon hauled him to their father's hiding place did much to soothe his jangled nerves.

"If Daemonar is with you," Saetan said matter-of-factly as Daemon pushed the door open. "I'll remind you that you are his closest relatives, and far more capable of dealing with his antics than I am."

Lucivar growled. Daemon ducked his head, hiding his smile. He held up the gift, all strange angles and cautiously wrapped edges. Saetan looked at it warily, as if he expected they'd somehow managed to stuff all of Daemon's nephew into the small package. Daemon, well aware of the results of tormenting his brother while he was in this temper, reached forward and placed the gift on the desk.

"Why didn't you give this to me earlier?" Saetan asked, examining the package with a hesitation that was almost insulting. 

"Forgot," Lucivar said mulishly. Daemon elbowed him, twisting his hips so that the blow Lucivar shot back at him glanced off his side. 

"It's private," Daemon said simply. Saetan nodded, accepting the answer quietly. When he decided to open the present he did so with the utmost carefulness, sliding his finger under each piece of tape in turn and making sure that none of the paper came off underneath it. Beside him Lucivar started to fidget. Daemon placed his hand over his brother's, for his own comfort as much as Lucivar's, until Lucivar stilled.

The packaged, when opened, was more of a mess than when they had started. Wood had been hammered in at strange angles, and while none of the nails were sticking out, the metal had bent and broken under the force of years. Herbs, the traces of which he had found in the books that he half-remembered, were scattered over the surface, stuck in place by the thick layer of barely dried lacquer that now covered the finished product. 

Saetan's eyes glimmered in the low light. Both Daemon and Lucivar looked away, ignoring the tears until Saetan had blinked them back and twisted his face into a more natural expression.

"What is it?" He asked, in a voice so loving and gentle that Daemon felt covered in the presence of it, like the warm blanket he intended to snuggle up under when he was done with his family. Lucivar and Daemon exchanged identical looks of resignation and disappointment.

"No idea," Lucivar said, poking at one of the edges. A spell, the only one they could think of that contained the ingredients included in the original recipes, turned the thing on its side and made it glow with a sick brown-green light.

"I suggest a paperweight," Daemon said, the small part of him that was a child wanting his father's approval defensive, the rest on the verge of laughter. "The type you throw at people who won't leave your study when they've outworn their welcome."

He assumed, due to the fact that it was not pelted straight at his head, that he hadn't outstayed his welcome. He chose not to push it, dragging Lucivar out of the study before his brother could make a fool out of both of them. As he closed the door, before the solid click that enacted the muffling spells, he could hear his father roar with laughter.


End file.
